Question

The temperature outside dropped 4 degrees from Wednesday thru Sunday. Write an expression to represent the total drop in temperature over the 5-day period from Wednesday to Sunday and then compute the total drop?

Answer 1

Let's say the temperature starts at `t`. So our equation thus far is:

`t`

Now each day is decreases by 4, so after one day the temperature would be:

1 day: `t - 4^@`

After multiple days it would change a little:

2 days: `t - 4(2) rarr t - 8^@`

3 days: `t- 4(3) rarr t - 12^@`

etc.

So as you can see, the total temperature drop on day 2 would be `8^@` and the total temperature drop on day 3 would be `12^@`.

The trick to this equation is that we multiply `4` by the `"number"` `"of days"` that it has been. So our equation would be:

`t - 4(d)^@`

`"t = original temperature"`
`"d = number of days"`

Since we know that it dropped for `5` days, we can put that in our equation for `d`:

`t - 4(d)^@ rarr t - 4(5)^@ rarr t - 20^@`

The total temperature drop would be `20^@`.